The annual Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) conference is an excellent opportunity to explore lab automation innovations, robotics, and software. The most recent conference was held January 25–29, 2025, in San Diego, California. One of the highlights of the meeting is the Innovation AveNew, which enables startup companies from around the world to show off cutting-edge technology in areas such as sensors, electrophoresis, cell sorting, phenotyping, and 3D tissue—advancements that contribute to solving critical medical and materials challenges. This year’s Innovation AveNew featured 18 new companies. We had the opportunity to talk with each of them during the conference.
amensio GmbH – small sensors
amensio GmbH has developed small, 9 mm spherical sensors that measure temperature in solution. These sensors can operate for up to 48 hours and can be reused in up to 15 experiments. Up to 24 sensors can be monitored simultaneously via wireless communication, eliminating the need for space-consuming, slow traditional probes in reactions and workflows. “Data fuels innovation in the lab, so let's make data collection effortless,” says Tim Lauterbach, cofounder and chief technology officer (CTO). “Rethinking sensors is not just essential—it's our passion!”
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Axor Biosystems – automated electrophoresis
Axor Biosystems has developed an automated electrophoresis-in-microplate approach to analyze and purify DNA, RNA, and proteins. "Frustrated by the tedious workflows for reaction clean-ups, purification, and quality control required for high-throughput sequencing, Brett [Anderson, CTO] and I set out to find a better way," says Abizar Lakdawalla, chief executive officer. “We’re still a bit bemused that the solution we stumbled upon addresses not only many of these sample prep challenges but also provides a generalized platform for analysis, detection, and purification.”
Each microplate can run up to 96 independent samples. This technology automates the entire electrophoresis process, increasing throughput, improving precision, and reducing costs—key benefits of automated sample preparation in high-throughput sequencing workflows.
Cryologyx - cryopreservation
Cryologyx has built upon research in cryopreservation to develop processes that use cryogen technology to produce assay-ready cells with high viability post-thaw.
Tom Congdon, CEO and founder, explains the impetus for developing these processes this way: “I started CryoLogyx to help scientists in the lab to do more 'science' and less preparatory work. Growing cells for experiments these days is unnecessary when cryopreservation solutions like ours exist to provide large amounts of highly viable cells post-thaw that perform identically to unfrozen.”
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Using this process, cells are available to accelerate research outcomes in cell biology, enabling experimental reproducibility and high ease of use.
CytoRecovery, Inc. – cell sorting
CytoRecovery has developed a markerless, electrophoresis-driven cell sorter and recovery tool. It uses electric field strength to trap and then release specific cells within the instrument. The lack of markers enables cells to be sorted, enriched, and recovered in a native, untouched state, improving the results of downstream biomedical research.
Alex Hyler, PhD, chief science officer, describes the motivation behind this innovation: “CytoRecovery is revolutionizing the way we study and understand diseases—from diagnosis to treatment—by studying them at the cellular level. Our novel, label-free cell sorting platform can provide healthy cells the same as they went in, after enrichment, for further downstream analysis and understanding—key to areas of cell therapy, personalized medicine, and more.”
Embrio – microscope for automation
Embrio has developed a microscope platform that can be readily integrated into an automated lab workflow.
Akira Ishikawa, CEO, and his cofounder of Embrio, developed OpenScope in response to challenges they faced early in their scientific careers. “During my PhD, I struggled to find an affordable, automation-friendly microscope and heard similar concerns from others,” he says. “That experience led us to create OpenScope.”
The microscope hardware includes software and image analysis tools to enable lab automation. The software features an easy-to-use application programming interface that requires just a few lines of code to drive more efficient experiments, reflecting the increasing role of AI in laboratory automation for data-driven decision-making.
FenoLogica Biosciences – automated phenotyping
FenoLogica Biosciences has combined phenotype imaging arrays with novel software to enhance cell phenotype classification and microbial strain optimization, significantly increasing analysis speed and reducing costs.
The MAVERICK II platform integrates solid media, a high-throughput microbial incubator, a multispectral imager, and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML)-enhanced analysis software. The system can monitor experimental cells for up to seven days, capturing images every 30 minutes to three and a half hours.
Sean MacLeod, CEO and founder, describes the new company’s impact: “FenoLogica operates at the intersection of functional genomics, synthetic biology, cloud computing, and applied AI to drive life-saving drug discovery and industrial bioscience breakthroughs for a sustainable future.”
Food Brewer – cellular agriculture
Food Brewer has developed bioprocesses to make food and food ingredients directly from plant cell cultures.
Alain Jeanrenaud, data scientist, describes their motivation to develop this new enterprise: “At the forefront of cellular agriculture, Food Brewer reinvents the propagation of specialty crops at scale in a bid to secure the future supply of cocoa and coffee. Our team has created novel automation tools in the process, owing to a lack of pre-existing commercial solutions.”
The company harvests a modest amount of plant material and selects cells of interest to multiply. The selected plant materials create a seed batch that can be used multiple times to produce the desired product. Using large-scale fermentation cultivation, Food Brewer offers a sustainable alternative to traditional agriculture. This technology provides solutions to protect key food products from geographic, climatic, and ethical uncertainties.
Galileo Dynamics BV – imaging inside the incubator
Designed for use inside an incubator, the IncuScope provides live-cell fluorescence imaging. It can scan six vessels with three channels of epifluorescence and a bright field channel.
The goal of this innovative technology is to develop an easy-to-use, highly functional, convenient, small, and affordable instrument to enhance drug discovery. Sam Hariri, CEO, explains: “In the world of live cell imagers, you only get two out of three characteristics in a device: imaging performance, usability, and/or affordability. The IncuScope was designed with a very specific purpose: to be the world's first system to deliver in all three categories.”
InSimili – oxygen regulation
InSimili won the prestigious SLAS Ignite Award, which recognizes the best-emerging company exhibiting within the Innovation AveNew.
The company’s technology enables researchers to better recreate the human body’s microenvironment by regulating oxygen concentration at the microscale. InSimili has developed coatings that reproducibly consume oxygen within the well of a microplate. “We want to reduce clinical trial failures by bringing the complexity of the human body into the lab, early and at scale,” says Enrico Grassilli, CEO. This technology will help researchers develop new disease therapies, especially for diseases such as cancer.
Intero Biosystems Inc – intestinal organoids
Intero Biosystems has produced the first stem-cell-derived human intestinal organoid containing functioning neurons, blood vessels, muscle, and inner intestinal lining.
These organoids enable drugs to be tested on human organs before starting clinical trials, helping to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and develop more effective drugs. Their use may also reduce the need for some animal testing.
Meteor Biotech – laser-activated cell sorting
Meteor Biotech has developed a cutting-edge approach to spatially resolved, laser-activated cell sorting (SLACS) called CosmoSort. This tool combines precise laser activation with advanced sequencing and proteomics technologies. It enables advanced cell sorting and molecular assays to whole genome amplification and imaging, whole transcriptome amplification and imaging, methylation and chromatin accessibility, and protein quantitation.
Sumin Lee, CTO says, “I started the company to save people’s lives. Our device aids the discovery of actionable targets.” SLACS technology is driving significant advancements in RNA research by offering unique benefits and overcoming the limitations of traditional methods.
OrganoBiotech – 3D tissue platforms
OrganoBiotech produces high-throughput 3D tissue culture platforms that support the development of tissue models and assays. Their hydrogel-based system allows cells to interact, assemble, and remodel.
The company has also developed a wide range of assays to study 3D tissue responses using electrical resistance, incorporating ML tools to accelerate drug development based on these models. According to Boyang Zhang, CEO and founder, the goal is to “allow the user to make 3D tissue models for drug discovery.”
PHIO scientific GmbH – cell as optical element
The Cellwatcher M is a clever device that provides imaging data without the need for a traditional microscope lens, instead using the cell itself as the optical element. This innovative tool can continuously monitor up to six different samples for cell growth and migration while inside the incubator.
Using AI tools, analyses can be completed in real time, enabling visualization and multiparametric data collection down to the single-cell level.
Anna Jötten, PhD, who leads scientific communication, shared her excitement about being included in the Innovation AveNew: “SLAS brings the puzzle pieces together, that bring lab automation to life. Getting the opportunity to come here and bring our invention, the Cellwatcher, to our first US event has been truly fun and an honor.”
Range Biotechnologies – translational proteomics kits
Range Biotechnologies has developed flexible translational proteomics kits that run on common liquid handlers in the lab. While protein discovery has advanced significantly, proteomics applications require addressing critical experimental factors simultaneously.
“Proteomic discovery is going well enough,” says Brandon Wilson, CEO and co-founder of Range Biotechnologies. “R&D needs tools that align all the critical metrics simultaneously.”
The company can deliver kits that are customized, scalable, highly sensitive, and reproducible, with a broad dynamic range and compatibility with streamlined workflows. These kits are specifically designed for use in clinical diagnostics, pharmaceutical research, and longitudinal monitoring.
React4life S.p.A. – 3D organ-on-a-chip technology
React4life has developed a 3D organ-on-a-chip technology that combines clinically relevant tissue size with an independent microfluidic environment, fully controlling the fluid flow around the organoid. Fluid flow is a critical factor influencing cell and tissue behavior and is essential for understanding complex human diseases.
The company’s MIVO product enables realistic and reproducible tests, advancing research in cancer, immunology, dermocosmetics, and biotech drug discovery. Silvia Scaglione, president and chief scientist, explains the interest in their products this way: “Our customers, primarily pharmaceutical companies, are adopting our MIVO organ-on-chip technology for testing new immunomodulating drugs against cancer (using our cancer-on-chip system). Additionally, they leverage our multi-organ-on-chip platform to study the interplay between different organs in systemic diseases.”
Salmonics LLC – sustainable clotting proteins
Salmonics gather and extract useful proteins from salmon blood, such as fibrinogen and thrombin, which have shown efficacy in treating wounds, reducing pain, and driving biomedical research for both human and veterinary care. Each year, about 50,000 tons of salmon blood is discarded as a wasted byproduct of wild fisheries and aquaculture.
According to Cem Giray, PhD, CEO and president of Salmonics, “We aim to use a material that is currently wasted to create useful materials for human and animal health and for future research.”
The company’s current product offerings include a blocking buffer, blood-clotting plasma proteins, plasma, and serum.
Visienco – organoid transfer
The new Orgadroid product combines lab automation, brightfield imaging, and AI software tools to identify and gently transfer organoids, enabling scalability, reproducibility, and greater efficiency in drug development. This compact and affordable tool is designed to handle sensitive organoids. It can sort organoids up to 5 mm and is compatible with flow hoods and sterilization protocols. The AI software tool is adaptable, allowing organoids to be sorted based on any visual feature.
Edwige Guinet, cofounder and CEO, describes the company’s mission: “At Visienco, we are revolutionizing lab automation with the Orgadroid—an AI-powered device ensuring precise, scalable, and fully automated organoid sorting. By solving key challenges in reproducibility and scalability, we empower researchers to accelerate breakthroughs in drug discovery and personalized medicine.”
Vitality Robotics Inc – automated necropsies
Vitality Robotics has developed benchtop surgical instruments to automate and standardize necropsies. This tool collects in vivo tissue faster and at a fraction of the cost of manual approaches. It also allows bench scientists to focus on research rather than on harvesting rodents used in biomedical research. In addition, the company is using AI and ML to create custom models.
According to Joe Webb, the CEO and founder, “Ride the AI wave or be prepared to be wasted under.” These advanced lab data management software tools enable rapid integration with many common LIMS and ELN systems and provide the backbone for more effective data management and data governance.
These innovative new products demonstrate the level of creativity within the lab automation community. They have the potential to drive exciting advancements across multiple fields, including drug discovery, food science, and materials science.
